Environmental law may be the one institution standing between us and planetary exhaustion. It is also an institution that needs to be reconciled with human liberty and economic aspirations. This course considers these issues and provides a tour though existing legal regimes governing pollution, water law, endangered species, toxic substances, environmental impact analyses, and environmental risk.

From the lesson

Two Famous Statutory Programs: Environmental Impact Analysis and Endangered-Species Protection

This week we start with perhaps the most influential American environmental statute ever enacted, the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), and its requirement for environmental impact analysis of certain actions that might significantly affect the environment. Over 70 countries have enacted programs similar to this one. Then, we study perhaps the strongest American environmental statute ever enacted, the federal Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) and study cases under the ESA that are, among other things, at the cutting edge in the tension between private property and environmental protection. In our theory session, we begin to discuss issues of politics and political economy, and consider a range of topics in the political economy of environmental law.